Casey’s dad forwarded these links to us. He never sends forwards, so I thought it would be worth my time to check it out. It will take you about 20 minutes to watch all of these videos, but I thought this lady had some really interesting insight into our consumption patterns as Americans. It won’t take much effort to weed out some of the political statements she is making to see the valid points she offers.
I think that we should be looking in to ways that we can recycle or use less, but most importantly we need to examine how we are passing on this materialism to our kids. I know that I often fall prey to wanting the newest, flashiest, coolest thing out there, but her point that in six months we won’t care about or even use most of the new stuff that we buy today is very thought provoking. I think Jesus was warning us about this when he said, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Matt. 6:19-21).
Casey and I have an ongoing conversation about when we should buy a bigger house. But these videos reiterated a thought that we come back to from time to time: we want to buy a bigger house when/because we need more room for all the people that live here, not because we need more room for all of the stuff we are storing here.
Anyway, if you have time, you should watch these videos. As you can see, they gave me a lot to think about.
Thanks to Pops for passing these on to us!
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
